The real Alexander Saburov

[Unseen]

Was reading about specific Pathologic lore and characters and I came upon this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Saburov

Just wondering since he seemed to be an authority, and a celebrated individual if this guy was an actual influence on the character. Or is the name just coincidence?

[Setanta017]

I don't know Russian so I can't go digging to see if that has come up within their conversations or if the Devs acknowledge it as a reference to him, but I wouldn't necessarily be surprised given how the names are basically the same.

The differences would be that THIS Saburov is not a military man, but he is a very uncompromising and disciplined individual, and very dedicated to maintaining order at any cost, as is his role in the town's triumvirate.

The first game does harp on some militaristic imagery and references in regards to the day when he "takes charge" in the Pantomine in the Bachelor's route though.

[Unseen]

Still I wouldn’t be surprised if saburov had some kind of military service given his appointed role. Maybe not not in the big war they talk about given his age, I really wish this mythos would be expanded. And maybe retcon the it’s just a dream or kids game plot, or maybe fashion some reasoning behind the powers that be.

I think an awesome spinoff could be a prequel called fanatica about the capital. Would love to see a dark gothic fictional moscow.

[Setanta017]

Not to potentially get hopes up, but there has been stuff teased about the Bachelor's Route since last year (There is also currently an ARG ongoing that is related to it), and some suspect that there will be big news regarding it once the ARG is finished.

There are a few things known about it if you're curious.

[Unseen]

Almost don't really wanna know cause of spoilers. Either way ice pick can take my money when its released. If they wanna charge for it.

[StrayDogFreedom]

Youtuber Andy North has been covering the ARG and just released a video about some of the newer details, for those interested. He has a Pathologic oriented channel in general.

[Unseen]

Sorry I'm not good with all these abbreviations what is an ARG?

[StrayDogFreedom]

"Alternate Reality Game"
Usually they're like "games" done through website links and puzzles that you don't play through a dedicated software application but through the internet in a variety of unconventional ways.
Pathologic 2 also had one surrounding the daughter of the Inquistor character that we meet in the game at Yulia's house, her name escapes me. Before P2 came out, Icepick released a series of cryptic clues and story snippets that "players" could tackle to find out more information about the game or the story.
I've never gotten into them myself, but I've followed other people's journeys with them. They're quite popular in the horror scene because it gives that tweak to the format that can hook people in. It seems like neat stuff that had a lot of dedication put into making it engaging for those who enjoy that kind of investigative type of entertainment.

[Setanta017]

Yea, you have to go out of your way, kinda, to meet the character in the game from the other ARG, but it is referenced through her all the same. That sequence with her and Yulia actually does a fair bit to flesh out more details about Yulia and also the Inquisition in general (Such as finding out there is not very many Inquisitors at all, but being a genius is a base requirement to become one.)

But yea, examples of games which include ARG elements on Steam are games like The Black Watchmen and Nite Team 4. The Secret World also included some of these in gameplay.

Though in principle they're any kind of game which involves the player engaging in some manner of investigative work beyond the base game, because the Devs have essentially created wider material around it to support an "alternate reality" to delve into.

This can be social media accounts that are effectively in reality just bots but are characters, standalone websites made up, and all kinds of other media. Usually they're puzzles.

Ice-Pick has been running one lately that very obviously relates to the Bachelor.

[Unseen]

What are they planning on making a detective game about inquisitors?

I found it funny when the haruspex made the link to religion, and bachelor was like what are you talking about? Obviously these inquisitors are gonna be nothing like the historical Italian ones.

[StrayDogFreedom]

Nah, so these ARGs are only related to the Artemy run and the Bachelor's upcoming run in their story content, not their gameplay mechanics. They're like teaser minigames just to build hype, they're not meant to reflect how the new games are going to actually play (as far as I know). Like, "hey are you looking forward to playing the new game? Well, here's something to do while you wait". That kind of thing.

[Setanta017]

Yea. Having said that, a bunch of the gameplay elements for what has been shown of the Bachelor route are gonna be very different from the Haruspex or from the taste we got in The Marble Nest.

Which while I initially scratched my head at, when hearing some of them, it arguably does make sense. Daniil even in how he was portrayed in the game here feels like he SHOULD play differently than in Pathologic 1, given that in the Haruspex's perspective he's basically the main guy overseeing the bulk of the top-down response to the Plague.

The Haruspex straddles the line between assisting such efforts and completely doing his own thing because he has no faith in the Bachelor's plan for a vaccine, and The Changeling just completely does her own thing from the bottom up because nobody in authority would take her seriously without serious backing (which she eventually does get via Saburov and then Block).

[StrayDogFreedom]

Yeah the things they're saying about it are interesting but I can't say I'm super enthusiastic about it, yet. I was really hoping the Bachelor's route would be pretty similar to the Haruspex's and that it'd just have a lot more focus on the political maneuvering and management of the city instead but I can admire Icepick for taking more of a risk. I just hope it runs on my toaster computer better than P2 does, lol.

[Unseen]

I still hope they have the sniping soldiers from behind a rock part in pathologic 1, it just cemented bachelor as a forced intellectual badass. Maybe make it so we can add a scope to the current rifle. Dudes got a microscope so the idea of him mcguyvering it into a scope seems like it would be cool.